Current Role at Stanford
•Original research focusing on applications of MR guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS) for ablative treatments of cancer and trans-cranial neurosurgical treatment of tremor. •Developing new MRI imaging strategies and pulse sequence development of non-ablative applications of focused ultrasound, including MR Acoustic Radiation Force Imaging.•Medical Physicist including ultrasound treatment planning and MRI imaging specialist of multiple ongoing human clinical trials, as well as clinical treatments at SHC, to image, treat, and monitor MRgFUS of bone metastases, soft tissue tumors of the extremities, uterine fibroids, and trans-cranial MRgFUS treatment of essential tremor. •Bridge technical and clinical communication as a go between in collaborations with clinicians, interventional radiologists, imaging technologists, medical device companies, and research scientists, graduate students, and faculty.

Current Role at Stanford
Offline data reconstruction and display; architecture and programming support for clinical research MR scans; image data transfer; image display; troubleshooting; data encryption and security.

Bio
Dr. El Assal is a Basic Life Research Scientist (Academic Staff) at the Canary Center for Cancer Early Detection, Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine. In 2016, Dr. El Assal completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine. Before moving to Stanford, he was working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA as well as the Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology division. In 2016, Dr. El Assal completed a Certificate Program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Dr. El Assal received his Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) degree from Ajman University of Science and Technology (AUST), School of Dentistry, Ajman, UAE in 2007. Subsequently, He completed a one-year Clinical Internship Program in General Dentistry at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI)-affiliated training center at AUST-School of Dentistry. Following his internship, he enrolled in an Advanced Education Program in General Dentistry for two years (2008-2010). His research interests revolved around the applications of nano-/micro-scale technologies and biomaterials in medicine, including regenerative and transfusion medicine as well as cancer research. He has published his research work in esteemed peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, including Advanced Materials (Impact Factor (IF): 19.79), Materials Today (IF: 21.69), Nanomedicine, Biotechnology Journal, Biofabrication Journal, ACS Molecular Pharmaceutics, Lab on a Chip, and Scientific Reports (from Nature Publishing Group). His research achievements have been recognized by the Center of Nanoscale Systems (CNS) at Harvard University. In 2015, Dr. El Assal has been nominated/elect as a Fellow of the Academy of Dentistry International (USA), International International Academy for Dental-Facial Esthetics (USA), and International Academy of Oral Oncology (UK). Dr. El Assal has a multifaceted and challenging career in research and patient care, and he is now aspiring to a career that will help fulfill his ambition of being an effective teacher, researcher, and clinician. His ultimate goal, along with treating patients on an individual basis, is to be able to treat them on a larger scale through establishing a world-class research facility that develop innovative solutions to clinical problems. During his free time, Dr. El Assal likes to help the people and serve the community.

Bio
My research interests are focused on developing and implementing novel beamforming techniques to improve the quality and diagnostic value of ultrasound images. Current projects include improving image quality in difficult-to-image patients, enhancing the sensitivity of molecular contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging, reducing common artifacts in ultrasound imaging using machine learning-based methods, and the rapid translation of these techniques onto real-time ultrasound imaging systems using GPU-based computing.

Current Role at Stanford
Dr. Fatih Inci’s area of excellence in research is to create micro- and nano-scale platform technologies at the intersection of medicine, biomedical engineering, biotechnology, chemistry, and materials science by manipulating biomolecules, cells and viruses in small volumes that offers precise solutions for real-world challenges in clinical diagnostics, personalized medicine, early cancer detection, forensic science, and biomarker discovery.

Bio
Dr. Leuze is working on techniques for visualization of MRI data using virtual and augmented reality devices. He has developed an MRI viewer for the Samsung Gear VR and has presented projects on MRI data volumetric visualization and registration to the real world using the Microsoft Hololens and the Intel RealSense camera. Dr. Leuze is furthermore refining MRI techniques for measuring brain circuits by validation with tissue clearing and optical imaging methods.